Sports are a significant part of Pakistani culture. The most popular sport of Pakistan is cricket followed by Hockey, which is the national sport of Pakistan and then there are polo, squash, badminton, tennis, golf, etc.
Cricket is a sport played in almost every house, from father to children though it does not mean it has a secure future in Pakistan. Cricket has never lost its lustre in the country. The team have been unpredictable since the beginning, though always stayed in the top league in the world.
Pakistan has always had superstars in cricket. Pakistan has won all the major ICC tournaments once. Batting is a weak point since always but their bowling attack have been one of the best always. Cricket runs in the nations’ blood.
Talking about the national sport hockey, Pakistan use to be one of the greatest teams in the world. Pakistan is the most successful hockey team till date. The team has four World Cup trophies under their belt, winning their first world cup in 1971 and last in 1994. Olympics has been a successful event for the team as well, with all of the country’s eight Olympic medals coming from hockey.
Sadly the national sport is nowhere to be played in the country anymore. Hockey declined after 1994 in Pakistan, being the national sport of Pakistan and not seeing them qualify in Olympics after 2012.
Since 1998, when Jansher Khan was defeated in the British Open final, Pakistan squash has fallen from its height and now no longer is the dominant force in squash. No Pakistani has since reached the final of either the British or World Open.
Pakistan is the most successful nation is squash as well. Pakistan has won the two most prestigious titles in the game more than any other nation: the British Open 30 times and the World Open 14 times.
The former Pakistan great Jahangir Khan, who was once the top ranked player in the world, has a record breaking winning streak of 555 matches. It is also one of the longest winning streaks by an athlete in any sport. He won the World Open six times, and the British Open ten consecutive times.
A country with such rich history in sports with a ton of records to their name was only able to send 10 athletes in Tokyo Olympics 2020. The question raised was, where did things go wrong?
A nation with population of 220 million was only able to produce 10 athletes for Tokyo Olympics? A nation of 220 million is unable to produce professional football players? Are there no swimmers in Pakistan? Is no one interested in tennis, hockey, volleyball, badminton or weightlifting? Do we not have any talent? Surprisingly the answer is that we are the nation who loves to play sports in their free time but there are reasons due to which we are unable to produce world-class athletes.
Most of the pakistan’s population belongs to middle class or lower middle class. Sport is a profession where there is no job security. An injury can end your whole career. Parents hesitate to allow their children to choose sport as a profession, instead they push their children to do a job in the government or private sector to have a more secure future.
But the bigger reason is systemic. The authorities seem oblivious to the impor- tance of sports, and there is little or no funding available for the development of sports. The upshot is that players in Pakistan lack even the basic facilities for training. We have international standard stadiums in Pakistan.
This is not to say the sports board lacks funds. They have the funds but they have no mind to invest and then they also expect the athletes to win medals and world cups for the country. There’s so much talent in Pakistan but unfortunately corruption has taken over everything.
Prime Minister Imran Khan was a sportsman himself. People were expecting- ing him to fix all this but the graph is getting worse day by day. Let us hope Tokyo Olympics 2020 serves as a wakeup call for him as well as other authorities. A little attention on the development of sports infrastructure and patronage of sports people is all we need before Pakistan starts producing superstars in every sport to make the nation proud.
